It is desirable to use a spine fin structure as the evaporator for a refrigerator since spine fins provide a large heat exchange area per unit length of evaporator conduit. This enables the refrigerator manufacturer to minimize the size of the evaporator and thus maximize the useable storage space of the refrigerator. The air being refrigerated by the evaporator is laden with moisture and the evaporator normally operates at frost collecting temperatures. This air flows around the fins and frost tends to quickly build up on the inlet end of spine fin evaporators. The evaporator must be defrosted fairly often and the overall operating efficiency of the refrigerator is reduced.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide refrigerator with an improved spine fin evaporator.
It is another object to provide such an improved structure in which the evaporator is more tolerant of frost build-up without significant degradation of the evaporator efficiency.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a structure in which the spine fin evaporator defines open passages for the build-up of frost.